


Line of Fire

by ShrupInterrupts



Series: When It's All on the Line [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Happy Ending?, M/M, Violence, blind 76, grown men with unresolved feelings, inhuman Gabriel, ish, some gore, this got out of hand and got so long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-18 23:54:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7336282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShrupInterrupts/pseuds/ShrupInterrupts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things with Gabriel Reyes remain ambiguously unresolved. Trying to correct the course laid before them will take a momentous effort. Neither of them may be up to the task but Jack Morrison has never been a man to let things go easily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The support for Line of Sight was amazing so here's a 2-part part 2! I'm honesty sick of this first part, but I needed to get some practice with actions sequences. I hope it's not too bad! The feels will return in part 2!

Reaper doesn't return. Soldier 76 tries to pretend he's not anxiously waiting for a mirthless chuckle every time he takes off the visor. Disappointment fills the empty space of his room with each passing day. Eventually he dives into training. It's a paltry distraction from the roil of thoughts and emotions left in Reaper's wake. 

He tries though. Not being at the helm is strange but Jack works to learn his new team. The kids are eager and energetic and the veterans help wrangle them into something organized and efficient. The web of connection is new and just starting to take root, but it will last. So he hopes.

Regardless, it's not enough of a distraction to hold him forever. He starts idly, a few inquiries here and there, noting Reaper spottings across the globe. He tracks Reaper's hits, maps potential targets, and watches. It spirals into something that keeps him awake. Tucked away in his quarters, the evidence of his obsession remains hidden from the rest of the team.

The visor helps. The others see Soldier 76 as a secretive man. The mask is just part of that persona. With it no one sees the dark circles under his eyes. No one has to know how much sleep he's lost since the specter of Gabriel Reyes appeared to haunt him. Jack like it that way just fine.

At night Jack paces his worries into the floor. Over it all Jack hears a nagging voice. _Gabriel will run forever._ He will avoid Jack at all costs instead of confronting... whatever it was that happened between them those weeks ago. In the predawn hours, memories rise unbidden, shoving past murky suggestions of sleep.

Their first real fight had been about the shower. Jack remembers yelling about hot water and unclean razors and what constituted "too many soaps". He remembers Gabriel and him in the thick of it, only a hair's breath from throwing punches. At some point the argument became bigger than hygiene standards. It became the argument about all the little things that built up in their first weeks as a couple. Nothing they couldn't work through with a little patience.

But Gabriel acted like it was the end of the relationship. He avoided Jack for a week: volunteering for extra duties, skipping meals, even sleeping in the mess hall one night. Jack made a tactical plan just to corner him into talking it through.

And that had only been the first fight. 

Reyes kept it up through most of their relationship. And Jack tried for so many years, but it wore him down. 76 knows he wore Gabriel down too. Bitter words and unresolved fights widened the distance between them to a cavernous void. It stayed that way until the roof came crashing down on all their petty fights and buried them in the rubble of unresolved problems.

Jack had thought that was where it had ended. Recent events prove him wrong again. The thought of losing this second chance, of Gabriel slipping away again is unacceptable. So he gets to work.

It takes 3 months and a slew of favors to pinpoint Gabriel Reyes. He get a hint that Reyes is scouting a location for a potential hit. 

Jack is on location by the next day, looking for a phantom needle in a haystack. Reaper has no heat signature and leaves few signs of ever having been in an area. He's careful.

But Gabriel Reyes is under that mask and Jack knows Gabriel. At least he likes to believe he does. He puts himself in Gabriel's mind and hunts through defensible places. Soldier 76 spends the day rooting through the dank dirty corners of town looking for a ghost. Doubt creeps in with each failure. Maybe he doesn't know Reaper as well as he thinks. He's becoming practiced at being wrong.

But he finds it in the dead of the night. Gabriel's safe house is an abandoned shop tucked away in a neighborhood with barred windows and dark alleys. No one here looks out their windows when Jack strolls down the street in his tactical gear, rifle at the ready.

Jack has nothing to worry about when he kicks the door in with a heavy boot. He sweeps the room with his rifle, visor indicating no life signs. There's a sound like a sigh from a back room.

Jack charges, vaults a counter and rounds a corner to see Reaper reaching for holstered weapons. An unnameable feeling surges up from his chest and lodges in his throat like a like a stone. He should shoot- Helix rockets primed and ready- but the old soldier tucks his chin and drops into a sprint.

Pain lances up his shoulder as he rams Reaper's back. Reinhardt would be proud as they cross the rest of the room from sheer force and collide with the wall. Reaper is not slow to respond, snarling even as he turns to slash his attacker's eyes. The talons leave scratches across the whole of Jack's visor.

Jack elbows him in retaliation, stepping back to get his rifle up. Feet tangle and Reaper turns. All it takes is one clumsy movement and they both topple to the floor.

Weapons scatter, clacking loud on a concrete floor. Jack lunges for his rifle, howling even as Reaper drags him back by his ankles. There are no words, just throaty snarls and grunts as they wrestle for control.

There is no time for thinking. This isn't Jack and Gabriel; Soldier 76 and Reaper take control of the moment. Both supersoldiers fight dirty and hard. Instinct and training blur as the scrap drags on. Jack's arms are bloody with scratches, but he presses the offensive. Desperation eats away at 76's practiced control. 

They roll and grapple. In the middle of it 76 kicks a shotgun as Reaper swats his rifle further away. Jack breaks from a choke hold as they roll across the room. 

76 likes to think he's holding his own well enough. Most of his punches connect, boxing Reaper's head to keep him disoriented. He has to keep Reaper from ghosting away again. Something cruel and cold twists in Jack's chest at the notion. All of this can't have been for nothing. Gabriel can't just run away again.

Reaper shreds Jack's side, ripping through jacket and flesh alike with a vicious sound. Jack can't contain an agonized gasp even as he knees Reaper in the gut. They roll again, Jack on top now, and his elbow bumps something that might be a gun.

He twists, feeling Reaper buck beneath him even as he grabs one of the discarded shotguns. He can end this fight, force Reaper to surrender. End the fight and start to talk or... For all his planning Jack's not sure what will come next. He just has to be here, has to see Gabriel. He turns, knowing that the hard part has only just begun. 

And somehow Jack must have forgotten how vicious they've both become. 

Maybe they've always been this way.

He pulls the trigger even as a spiked gauntlet enters his field of vision.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Uno for getting me unstuck! Without you I'd still be screaming at the keyboard.
> 
> Some warning for mild gore and body horror.

There is a screeching moment of horror between the sound of the shotgun discharging and Jack's visor shattering. The world is stabbing sensations lancing from his face through his head. It sears down his spine as everything flickers in and out of existence. Gabriel curses, wet and horrible. Jack's pretty sure he does too but stops hearing as the world tilts and his mind buzzes.

He's on the ground, shotgun still in hand. Jack panics, unsure if he passed out or if it's just from the unexpected disconnect of his visor. Everything goes black either way, but the difference between seconds and minutes can undo all his work. 

His first thought is of Reaper fleeing. Gabriel could have slipped away if he passed out. Or he could be dead. Jack can't tell in the dark silence that follows.

There's still a buzzing in Jack's head, and he sucks in breaths while trying to focus on sitting upright. His face is on fire and he can feel shards of the broken lens embedded in the skin around his eyes. That was ballistic-rated plexiglas and Reaper blew through it like a tank shell.

There's a rasping sound that makes him freeze. Reaper, ahead and to his left. Alive.

The grim realization of what happened sets in. He tried to kill Gabriel. Jack would have shot point blank if he hadn't already been going for Jack's biggest weakness. The attack to his visor is underhanded and saves Gabriel's goddamn life.

Neither of them move. The fight is over, or at least on a hiatus, but Jack doesn't put down the gun yet.

"Well," Reaper sounds winded, filling Jack with a smug sense of pride, "Hello to you too."

Jack smiles bone weary behind his visor, "Shut up Gabe." Jack busies himself fishing free a biotic field. The old soldier drops the shotgun to snap open the field canister when he realizes there's tension in the air.

He's called Reaper Gabe again.

No taking it back now. Jack says nothing but kicks the shotgun away from them both. He sighs as the warm tingling of the biotic field fills his body. None of his wounds are too grievous. One should be plenty.

"Sure that's wise?" It's unsettling how quiet Reaper is. He knows that if Reaper hadn't said anything he wouldn't know where the man was. With no visor to tell him otherwise Reaper could be fine, could be armed, could be a threat. Jack shrugs, hissing as he plucks bits of visor from his face.

"I'm not here to fight you Reyes."

"Really?" Reaper laughs, mirthless and forced. It's petty but Jack hopes Reaper's outside the reach of the biotic field and will have to drag his ass closer. "This is one hell of a social call, Morrison."

It's the closest Reaper's come to calling him by name. 

Jack sucks in a sharp breath, pretending it's from his wounds closing. Dusty memories stir something just behind Jack's sternum: his name on full lips, breathless, angry, chiding, mocking, across the spectrum of emotion. He shifts, willing the sensation away.

"Yea, you left without saying goodbye. Couldn't let some rude punk get the best of me." Jack pries the whole of his visor from its mount. The buzzing in his head finally stops as it drops to his lap. The smell of blood in the room is unsurprisingly strong.

Gabriel rumbles with something that might be another laugh, "Few seek out death itself. Feeling nostalgic or just eager to finish what we started?"

"For all that bark, I'm still kicking." 

It so easy. They could banter like this all day, pretend like they hadn't just tried to kill each other. Again. Jack could pretend the warmth in his chest has absolutely everything to do with his biotic field and nothing to do with the man in front of him.

It would still be a lie.

They're both flat on their asses and Gabriel hasn't stopped running, putting distance between them with every quip. Jack's fallen for it before. 

Determined not to make the same mistake, Jack reaches up to his shoulder pack. It takes some effort to get the pouch open but he manages, pulling free a spare visor lens. It's flimsy and there's a crease in the middle where it folds but it's enough for now. He'll have to thank Winston for insisting on it.

"Always prepared." Reaper scoffs, disgusted, "Boyscout." 

There's still a wet edge to his voice that makes Jack frown as he fits the replacement to his mask. A few deft movements and he snaps it back over his face. Everything buzzes, static behind his eyes before it settles. There's a seam in his vision from the hinge and everything is extra-red, but he can see at least.

The blood is everywhere: smeared on the walls, bold streaks across the floor, some of it pools in a low spot by Jack's boot. Jack sees the wet shine of it, having difficulty distinguishing it otherwise. Gabriel slouches against the wall, limp and still.

Awkward legs push Jack forward through the mess as he tries to process what he sees. Gabe's arm is a wreck, chewed from elbow to shoulder in a gaping, fleshy mess. Inky tendrils lift in delicate spindles from the wound around bloody ribbons of flesh. Jack's eyes dart to his neck- bleeding and smoking like a vent but not enough to worry about arteries. Gabe would be dead already if it was. 

At least the wounds appear to be knitting under the biotic field. Jack watches a trail of ink and blood thin then stop. It's just so slow.

Jack pulls himself close to Gabe's side even as Reaper growls a warning. He barely hears it, still assessing. Shoulder armor seems to have done it's job well enough. He can see holes where buckshot made its way through but it's not awful.

His mask is the worst of it. Reaper's hood is blown back, mask hanging at a strange angle. Smoke pours from the missing left third of the skullish visage in thick plumes. 

And it makes sense- clear as day Jack can see what happened. This was the arm that took out his visor. Jack's shot shredded it's way up Gabe's arm and buried itself in the side of his face. Without getting punched he would have taken Gabriel's whole head off.

"Shit." Jack's voice cracks as he reaches forward to inspect the wound better. There's buzzing in his head again that has nothing to do with the visor. 

Gabriel makes a discontent sound, batting at Jack's hand with an alarming lack of energy. It's enough to deter Jack from investigating further. Maybe he doesn't want to see what's underneath that mask after all. Panic flutters like a trapped bird in his chest and training alone makes the soldier smother it.

"Good shot." Gabriel laughs and Jack wants to punch him. 

"What do I-" He sits back already reaching for another biotic field.

"Nothing." It strikes Jack that Gabe shouldn't sound this clear. He's slurring around the edges and the rattle in his breath is evident, but no one missing that much of their face should be speaking at all. Something is amiss.

Reaper doesn't seem to notice the way Jack pauses and carries on, "Conventional medicine isn't my thing anymore."

Still running. Throwing up words like a shield when this is so wrong. He wants to shake Reyes for it, feels like he's going to shake apart. He's never been good at dealing with failure and this certainly feels like one.

This wasn't how this was supposed to go.

It's a feeble thought. Jack isn't sure what he had expected, but not this. Everything was still so...unresolved. They were both alive with an entire lifetime of unaddressed mistakes. There's been a sucking void in his head, whispering if he could get to Gabriel, just see Gabriel, they'd figure something out like they used to. Like before Jack gave up on chasing him and everything went to shit.

He needs to see Gabriel.

With a steadier hand than he would have thought possible Jack reaches up to Reaper's ruined mask. Careful fingers find the release, peeling what's left of it from his face. He places it on the floor. 

The first thing he sees if the void. He can't _not_ notice it. Chin to temple, Gabe's face is consumed in a twisting mass that is so black and empty it seems infinite. At the edges, wisps lick their way upward before dissipating into nothing. It is a void where a gaping, fatal wound should be. 

Jack freezes. Gabe watches, one eye half obscured in blackness. Those are different too, white's turned coal black. Rings of color track Jack's reaction, inhumanly bright. They could be red, but with the visor he can't be certain. There are splotches of varying shades across his skin that Jack can't decipher. It's not enough. 

Jack had wanted to see Gabriel. Some part of him felt entitled to it after being caught barefaced and vulnerable last time. But the visor can't tell him if those eyes are still bright like state fair caramel. Can't tell if he's gone pale or if Gabriel still finds time to sit and bake in the sun. Can't tell him if the strange dark splotches are bruises or something else entirely. 

"What are you looking at?" Gabriel's lips move and smoke pours from his mouth like a smoke stack. There's a fine edge to his voice, waiting for Jack to pass judgement on all he sees.

Jack knows this isn't natural. Something something obscene has happened to Gabriel in the years since their parting. The empty feeling in Jack's chest twists and pulls until it's thinner than spider silk, feels like it's going to snap. One thing remains crystal clear; it's still Gabriel. 

Same cheeks his abuela once peppered with kisses when they visited her, heavy brow prone to wrinkles, dark hair that lifts in just the faintest suggestion of a curl, scars new and old that paint a storybook across handsome features. It's Gabriel.

And Jack can't help but lean in, place his forehead against Gabriel's and delight at the contact. Even if Gabriel feels weirdly cold, void lapping at the sides of his visor like butterfly kisses, Jack needs this. Gabriel hisses, shaking his head but not pulling away.

There's something complicated happening in Gabriel's expression. Jack isn't adept enough to understand what it means. Gabe's good arm winds it's way around the back of his head, holding Jack there as he continues to shake his head. He makes a pained sound, eyes flicking up to Jack's visor with a wild sort of desperation.

Jack opens his mouth to ask, to find out what's happening but he feels it first. Gabe mouths along the front of his visor, panting as he kisses the hard surface like his life depends on it. Jack can feel teeth scrape against the material and shudders.

The air leaves Jack's lungs. The wire thin emptiness in his chest snaps all at once. He presses into Gabe with a soft sound, hand fisting in Gabe's coat and wow he's out of breath.

Really out of breath.

Worringly out of breath even. No matter how hard he tries, there's not enough air in the room to fill his lungs. It's nauseating. 

He panics, pushing back even as Gabriel's grip tightens. Reyes leans into him with a growl that's two parts too hungry for Jack's liking. Face twisted like he's in pain, Gabe refuses to let go or stop. 

Jack feels like he's dying. Everything he's ever been is leaving through the front of his mask. There's a sound like the ocean in his ears.

Jack lashes out, fist plunging into the black of Gabriel's face with a tingling sensation that blazes up his arm. Gabriel shrieks like he's been burned, freeing Jack to grab his smoking wound. 

Jack falls on his side, his back to Gabriel as he gulps down grateful breaths. He feels like a pillow with the stuffing ripped out, head spinning as he tries to push it all back inside. The moments tick away as Jack tries to regain his composure. Reaper say nothing, frozen.

"What the _hell_ was that?" Well, he manages not to yell, so Jack counts it as composure.

Gabriel's panting, voice shaky and razor thin, "Unconventional medicine."

Jack rolls flat on his back, tilting his head toward the other man. Gabriel is staring down at him with wide eyes, looking like he wants to bolt. For all his wit, he looks just as shocked at Jack. It's strangely calming.

"Gabriel." Jack insists.

Gabriel gingerly cups his face. The muscles in his neck tighten, staning in high relief like he's bracing. His voice drops to a flat monotone, "I devour souls. It helps me heal."

Jack should be surprised at how unsurprised he is. He's seen the reports, seen the corpses left in Reaper's wake. It makes enough sense. Later, there will be plenty of questions and pacing when he thinks about it- how utterly unfair it is that after everything neither of them found any rest or peace- but for now the answer is enough.

"Don't do that again. Ever." Jack lays limply on the floor, relishing in the feeling of his pulse leveling out. He'd rather have Gabe gut him like a fish instead of experiencing that again.

"Just stay over there old man." Gabriel grumbles, and Jack can't help but notice the lack of slurring. "Can't smell your crusty old soul unless you're close."

Jack sighs and stares up at the ceiling. He's content to keep his distance."We can't keep doing this, Gabe."

"Pretty sure we can." Reyes straightens against the wall, staring down at Jack. It's the most he's moved since this began. "This is what we do."

"Wasn't always like that. Doesn't have to be any more." Jack is tired. It is a feeling that lurks in his bones, has been there for years. 

Jack's seen war and peace and witnessed the world demand his work, his life, be burned at the stake. He's lost enough friends that the idea of doing it again makes him want to stay on this dirty, blood smeared floor forever. It's selfish but Jack Morrison just wants things to be easy again.

"You're getting sentimental again." Reaper tries to sound annoyed. Without the mask Jack can hear the lift in his voice. Maybe he's just slurring again, but Gabe sounds hopeful. Maybe interested. 

Jack is too tired to respond. The silence drags on until Gabriel makes a frustrated noise. "So what do you want?" His voice rises, and the words build into a rapid staccato, "You want to sit here and talk about everything that happened? Want to relive the good ole days? Want me to tell you I'm sorry? Because I'm not."

He growls, leaning forward like he's pressing an attack, "Death doesn't have regrets. Death doesn't apologize. You're wasting your time if that's what you want to hear. So tell me Morrison, what are you even doing here?"

He's trying to ambush Jack with word, scare him of with the sheer force of his questions. Nostalgia pulls of Jack's chest. He sits up on his elbows and ignores the protest in his battered arms. Jack looks frankly at the man before him. Finally. He's stopped running. 

"I don't want an apology Gabe. I just- I want-" Jack pauses, chewing on his response. "I don't really know, Gabe. I find out it's you under here and you ran and I just had to..." 

He trails off with a shrug. "I miss you."

Things aren't going to be the same and they both know it. But that doesn't mean there can't be more.

Jack's tongue feels thick in his mouth. He's cautious, trying to gauge Gabriel's reaction as he goes, "Not Reaper. I miss you, Gabe. I just want to see you. Without all the guns and the....this." Jack gestures vaguely with his hand, managing to encompass the whole tangle of things they're still shooting one another over.

Gabriel blinks, wide and owlish, then laughs. Its' loud and wheezing and honest and not at all like the arid chuckles Jack's heard until now. Gabriel's shoulders shake as the laughter trails off into a wheezing snort. 

"You shoot me in the face," Gabriel reigns himself in, letting his hand fall away from the smokey mass of his wound, "and then ask me, what, on a date?" 

Reaper's still snickering, " _Pendejo_ , you always were a romantic."

It's too much. Maybe he's just exhausted and this is the only thing left in his emotional repertoire, but Jack laughs too. Gabe starts up again and the two supersoldiers snicker and snort in the mess of their own fight like they're high on it. 

Jack sits all the way up, newly healed wounds protesting at the stretch strain of laughter. He'll have to ask Angela to look him over, but that can wait.

There is a giddy lightness to his movements. In this singular moment it feels like things could be alright. It feels like there's something worth salvaging. It's a small something and has to be riddled with shrapnel and bullet holes by now, but it's worth holding onto.

The last of the laughter stops and Jack scoots himself closer to Gabriel. He sits on Gabriel's good side, leaning against him from shoulder to hip. Gabe's hand lands on Jack's leg and doesn't move. 

For a while they just sit.

"Should probably leave." Gabriel breaks the silence, "We weren't exactly quiet. " 

He's not wrong. There could be cops. And Jack's sure Reaper has a timetable and check-in's to meet. They can't stay here forever but Jack doesn't want to go yet.

Whatever happened that night in Jack's quarters is happening again here and now. It's tenuous and fragile and Jack isn't sure how to keep it from disintegrating like a dream. This has to end, but it doesn't have to be the end. 

He takes a chance, leaning in to rest his temple against Gabriel's. He hears the bigger man inhale, body tightening like a spring. Jack lingers in the touch just a moment longer. It's selfish and stupid but that seems to be the recurring theme with Gabriel Reyes.

Jack withdraws, standing before offering his hand to Gabe. Seconds chip away at Jack's confidence as he helps the other upright. Dread sits weighty on his shoulders. This might be only opportunity to make something that won't disappear as soon as they walk out the door and he's got cotton mouth. 

Gabriel teeters on his feet before getting his bearings. Jack scoops up his rifle and the discarded Reaper mask. The look on Gabe's face when Jack hands it to him is a reflection of his own worries and fears. Neither of them know what comes next but both of them are trying to figure out how to ask for more. Or at least, Jack hopes that's what he sees.

He takes another chance.

"I was thinking," Jack forces the words out. "I haven't been to Ilios in a while. Do you remember the safehouse there?"

They called it Point Retreat. Back in the formational days of Overwatch the young soldiers had fought each other to use it on leave. Their superiors, Reyes included, often reminded them it wasn't a vacation house. When Jack took command he learned it was because none of them had wanted to share.

Gabriel still looks anxious, but the corner of his mouth quirks upward. "I remember."

Jack watches Gabriel don his mask. The old soldier steps toward the door he crashed through at the start of this all. They've always been bad at goodbyes. Jack needs time to put together his thoughts but this, this is something he wants to see through. This can't be a one-sided endeavor though. In no uncertain terms, Jack needs to know Gabriel wants it too. 

"I'll need to restock it. Two weeks from now."

The offer stands in the air between them as Jack turns away. His boots feel like lead as Jack heads for the exit. The ball is in Gabriel's court. Jack's caught a glimpse under the mask, seen a man he loved risen again to something beyond just a man. Something strange and unnatural and to be feared. Something so familiar it hurts.

And Jack's been seen for the blind, old man he is. His weaknesses laid bare for a man he's supposed to want to kill. It could end at that. He can't force Gabriel to want anything more to do with him. Jack clings tight to hope but braces for disappointment. He crosses the threshold, out into the cool night air.

"See you there, Jack." 

It's little more than a whisper on the wind, but it fills Jack with something blindingly bright. Walking into the night, he doesn't look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't say it enough, thank you for reading!
> 
> This one spiraled out of control real fast but I hope it's worth the scrolling. I'm unsure if this particular set will have any more stories, but no one can stop me from writing more edgy dads. I'm always open to suggestions! c:


End file.
